1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group)-4 encoder, and more particularly to an MPEG-4 encoder using an H.263 multimedia chip.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many developers of next generation mobile phone have conducted intensive research into a new technique for connecting a variety of applications with the mobile phone (i.e., a mobile terminal) to satisfy a variety of user desires. Particularly, most of users have a great interest in a video communication function (i.e., a video phone function) and a camcorder function. Therefore, a production company or manufacturer of the mobile terminal must implement an H.263 encoder and an MPEG-4 encoder that serve as an international standard in the mobile terminal. Typically, an H.263 encoder performs a video communication function, and the MPEG-4 encoder creates a moving image such as a video image of a camcorder.
The H.263 encoder and the MPEG-4 encoder can be implemented via software or hardware systems in the mobile terminal. However, the software implementation method has limitations in providing a user with a high-speed communication service matched with the user's request, and the hardware implementation method has a disadvantage in that it unavoidably increases the cost, size, and complexity of a chip.
Therefore, the company or manufacturer of the mobile terminal currently implements the H.263 and MPEG-4 encoders in the mobile terminal using all of the software and hardware implementation methods. For example, companies or manufacturers may employ a hardware implementation of the H.263 encoder for a video communication function, or may employ a software implementation of the MPEG-4 encoder. However, the MPEG-4 encoder consumes a much larger load than the H.263 encoder in performing a DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) process, a motion estimation process, and a motion compensation process, such that the software-implemented MPEG-4 encoder unavoidably performs a video coding process at a very low speed.